ABSTRACT
One of the most important consequences of the introduction of the market economy to Estonia was large income differences. The situation was radically changed when wage and income formation was liberalized, and the thing which is interesting in this context is how the new income differences were reflected in the income structure among Estonians and non-Estonians. The information from the official statistics apparently contradicts the conclusion which says that income as a result of privatization was higher for Estonians than for non-Estonians. The income originated from various sorts of private enterprise: personal household, individual work and business. Non-Estonians obtained this type of income to a lesser degree. Among Estonians the following types of income constituted a higher share of their total income than was the case among non-Estonians: compensation, investment, other income and hard currency income. The only categories where non-Estonians had higher figures than Estonians were social insurance and tax.
